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Sunday, 11 November 2012

We Survived Sandy

(A little background on this piece. I am visiting the United States these days as a fellow of "Emerging Youth Leaders of Pakistan" program, initiated by the Atlantic Council, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This post is a recollection of memories gained in New York, our first destination.)

Times Square

Ad for Newsies

Maine Monument, Central Park

Library of Columbia University

SANDY

Seinfeld Restaurant

Cathedral of St John

NY Skyline from Rockefeller Center

View of NY from Empire state building

We Survived Sandy

“Do you Speak Arabic?” and “Are you wearing a [suicide]
vest?” were two of the questions I was asked when I told people that
I was from Pakistan. It is usually said that you take some part of your country
with you wherever you go and the first thing you do in another country is to
confront their stereotype about you. Being in New York, that too during one of
the worst storms in the history of the city, was a great experience to have.
The first thing I noticed as soon as we reached JFK Airport was the large
number of visitors, mostly from Eastern Europe, who were waiting to go through
Immigration. I have heard nasty/creepy stories about Immigration at U.S
airports but what I got was quite non-descript. No cavity search, no long interrogations,
no suspicious looks or change in attitude. It was a bit disconcerting as well
to know that they didn’t deem me important/suspicious enough to at least do a
full body scan.!! As soon as we slipped out of the airport, we faced a gush of strong chilly wind
which accompanied us throughout our visit. We reached our hotel after forty
minutes of travelling(or sleeping, in my case) and were welcomed there by Mr.
Shuja Nawaz and Huma from the Atlantic Council. After depositing our luggage in
our respective rooms, we got a chance to wander out in the streets of New York.
During that detour, I discovered that Cart food is considered good in New York,
which is totally contrary to what we(or at least my family and medical
fraternity in general) think about cart food in Pakistan. We got Shawarmas from
“The Halal Guys” and later had a walk up the avenue to visit Times Square. After our first visit of Times Square, we got addicted to it and we visited
Times Square at least once daily. We got pictured on the camera feed present
there, ventured up the red steps, got loads of pictures and what not. In the preceding days, we were largely confined to our hotel due to the
“Franken-Storm” named Sandy. We had two intellectually engaging sessions with Mr.
Shuja Nawaz and I got to meet Prof Manan Ahmad at Columbia University. It was
during the meeting with Mr. Manan that I realized where I was sitting at that
time. It was the “Seinfeld” restaurant, the exterior of which was showed in
almost every episode of my favorite television comedy show. It did not have the
same interior design but it was nonetheless a great feeling for a die-hard Seinfeld
fan to be at that particular Diner. We also got to visit Columbia University
and had lunch at a nearby Japanese Restaurant. I still don’t remember what I
ate that day(I was clueless while eating as well).During the visit to
Columbia, we went to witness Cathedral of St. John the divine, which is the 4th
largest Christian church in the world and probably one of the biggest Gothic churches
in the world. It had an exquisite exterior and I don’t think I have ever seen a
building that grand and beautiful in my entire life. We encounter a shady(albeit
Silver-Tongued) character there who, apart from detailing the history of the
church and its reconstruction, also pestered us with Conspiracy theories and
how different “signs” had already appeared on the walls of the church
forecasting the future. Being in New York City during Sandy was both a nightmare and an opportunity to
witness emergency management in a “developed” country by ourselves. Early
Warnings were issued and the local government responded to the storm as well as
they could. A lot of difficulties had to be faced, including power shutdowns
and absence of the Subway system, which practically paralyzed the city. Many of
our plans had to be shelved because of these problems but we still managed to
walk around the city, as much as we could. It was a unique opportunity for us
to have a firsthand experience of how a “Developed Country” responds to
national emergencies and disasters. We have seen what happened in our own
country in the wake of Earthquake in 2005 and Floods in 2010 and 2011. Due to
effective management and early warnings, the impact of the storm was reduced
and less than a hundred people lost their lives due to the storm, which does
not reflect accurately the gravity of the situation. While we were busy confronting our own stereotypes, we also discovered how
wrong so many people have been about New Yorkers. It is usually said that New
Yorkers are arrogant, detached and apathetic. I confess that one week is too
soon to reach any conclusion but at least for this much duration, we(or at
least I) found New Yorkers to be none of the above. I had previously thought
that taking so many pictures and getting people to take pictures of us or with
them would be at least a bit annoying for most people, but No sir, it was not
the case. We got pictures with Cops in Times Square at 11 p.m., with paramedics
on Broadway at 5 in the morning and asked a florist at 6 a.m. to take a picture
of our group. None of those people even displayed a smirk. A taxi driver once
refused to charge some of the fellows because he was a Pakistani while a
Rickshaw driver gave us good enough discount on the ride. My beard was also
supposed to be a problem for me but it never was, not at the immigration, not
in the city, not in any of the offices that we went.

It is also frequently said by travelers that a city can
only be truly explored if you walk through it. I have done this experiment
previously and have fallen in love with parts of Lahore because of this
exercise. In New York, all we did was walking. We were fortunate that our hotel
was located near so many memorable places and we got the chance to explore a
lot just by walking. On a personal note, I am not a big fan of pets but the
amount of cute dogs I saw on the streets of Manhattan reduced some of the
strong feelings I had about this issue. Initially there was some problem with
food, as after breakfast we had so many options but their “Halal-ness” was not
verified so we were reluctant to experiment. I am already a vegetarian so it
was not a big gastronomic shock for me but for some of our fellows, it was a
very difficult time. I had Japanese food for the first time which I liked, not
so much the American staple diets.

United States is supposed to be the Land of Free so the first thing that I did
upon reaching my hotel was to use YouTube, which has been blocked in Pakistan
for the last few weeks. My mind couldn't stop comparisons when I saw different things in the streets of
New York. Cart Food, which is shunned by most well-off Pakistanis, is
considered good enough in New York. Tap Water can be used for drinking
purposes, without a second thought about any water-associated illness. Thank
Yous and Sorrys are much more common. No one gives you a second look, whatever
your skin color or dress might be. People get out of the way if you want to get
pictures of a particular place. Zebra crossings actually work and vehicles
would stop for pedestrians even if the pedestrians are violating the rules. No
one cuts through the line, how long that might be. No whistling in theaters.
People generally follow time for meetings and excuse politely as soon as the
time finishes. These few little actions may not be thought of much by people in
the U.S because they have grown accustomed to them but for folks from the
"developing world" (thats a misnomer), they are fascinating. We visited a grassroots organization working for development of
under-privileged South Asian children, named SAYA (South Asia Youth Action). It
was heartening to witness active community participation in helping the
community itself. We also visited an office of the United Nations Organization
(UNO), where we met the Chief Knowledge management office of the UN. Later that
day, we visited the Rockefeller Centre and Grand Central Station, both of which
are among favorite tourist destinations. One fine morning, we decided to visit Downtown area and ended up in Greenwich
Village. To our utter amazement, there was no electricity in the area,
reminding us of Pakistan. We even saw a utility store which was being run under
the light of a solitary candle. Most of the shops were closed and streets were
generally deserted. We saw a statue of Mr. Gandhi in the Greenwich area. It was
followed by a spur of the moment decision to visit the Empire State Building
which was nearby. I and another fellow were among the first batch of visitors
to the Empire State building that day (tours start from 8 a.m. onwards). It was
an out of the world experience to be standing on top of Empire State and
finding the city of New York under our feet. It was really cold up there as
well but the joy and excitement were overwhelming. It was a proper “Empire
State of Mind”. We visited the offices of New York Times, one of the most widely read
newspapers in the world, on 2nd November, 2012. For an aspiring
journalist such as myself, it was akin to visiting Heaven. The one thing that
caught my eye apart from the exquisite interior design was the amount of books
present on each of the staff's workstation. Despite being a bookworm myself (6
half/quarter-read books lying on my own side table), I was amazed. I don't know
many journalists or press people in Pakistan who read such a huge amount of books
(a few of them do, but they are exceptions not the rule). Douglas Schorzman,
Foreign News Editor of NYT talked to us about various issues regarding NY
Times. He was joined for sometime by Susan Chira, assistant managing editor for
news of The New York Times. Mr. Douglas was eloquent in answering queries of
inquisitive youth leaders from Pakistan and provided detailed answers. He also
took us on a short tour of the News Offices. We were able to appreciate the
“Open Culture” at New York Times which represents transparency on part of the
Newspaper. To conclude our visit of New York, we got a chance to watch a Broadway Show.
Two groups were formed, one of which opted for watching “The Lion King” while
the other, including myself, opted for watching “Newsies”. It was one of the
most exhilarating experiences of my life. No wonder the play won the prestigious Tony Award for best play. Performance of the actors was so good
that one of my companions wondered if it were a 3D movie? I have seen and acted
in semi-professional theater in Pakistan and have watched some good theater
performances but Broadway was a different galaxy altogether. It was surreal,
magical, and inexplicable, beyond the reach of words. It was the perfect ending
to our Topsy-turvy tour of New York, a cherry on the top.

About Me

Intrepid Traveler, more interested in Political Economy and History than Medicine, Politically Liberal. I support historical Revisionism(rewriting Pakistan's textbooks). have written for Dawn Blogs(English and Urdu), The News, The Friday Times,The News on Sunday,The Nation, Journal of Pakistan Medical Students, Express Tribune Blogs, Pakistan Today, ViewPointOnline.net and Pak Tea House. Currently Assistant Editor at Pak Tea House. Interested in general knowledge.